Friends and Cookies

Yesterday, our friends Mando and Marcia dropped off their daughter Charisma at our house to play with Elijah for the morning. They had a great time playing together, looking out the window....and kissing! Where were their parents anyway???










Today, Elijah helped Laura make sugar cookies. He had a great time figuring out how to use the cookie cutter and even more fun smearing flour all over his hair and helping spread the left over cookie dough all over the kitchen floor and carpet. They made 106 cookies all together!!! Not bad for a morning's work!Anyone want to help us eat them?

Cowherd Trip Finale

Here's the continuation of all the adventures we had during their trip...

Day 4 -- Tuesday

Tuesday was a pretty relaxing day, we didn't do a whole lot. In the morning, Laura and her mom went to a MOPS meeting. Larry watched Elijah while I worked. Then in the afternoon, Larry, Ardys, Laura and Elijah took a walk down the street and went shopping at some of the local thrift stores while I stayed at home and continued working. I got lots of work done, but probably didn't have as much fun as everyone else did...oh well.

Day 5 -- Wednesday

Wednesday I stayed home and worked again while everyone went shopping at ROSS and the Mall. The afternoon consisted of naps and at night we went to an Italian restaurant called Prizzi's Piazza in Hollywood. They are most famous for their garlic/cheese rolls so of course we had to get those, and then we got pasta and pizza (for Elijah). It was all super good!!! Yum. The best part about it was that we had a $50 gift certificate to use so it was basically free.

Day 6 -- Thursday

Thursday morning we went to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Normally it costs $24 per person to tour, but since it was the 40th anniversary, there was a deal that California residents could see if for free...that's basically why we went. The deal is only for the month of April. It was pretty impressive!

The Queen Mary was built in 1934 and was the largest cruise ship of its time. It was bigger than the Titanic! During WWII, it was re-vamped for the war and used to transport soldiers overseas carrying a total of 765,000 soldiers during that time. It would carry about 15,000 soldiers per trip. It was nicknamed "the Gray Ghost" because it was painted battleship gray (is that even a real color?), was never attacked (never even had to fire one of its guns in defense), and so fast that it could outrun enemy submarines. When the war was over, it was converted back into a cruise ship and then finally decommissioned and docked at Long Beach Harbor in 1967. Here are some comparisons between the Queen Mary and the Titanic:

~ Overall Length: Queen Mary - 1019.5 ft, Titanic - 882.9 ft

~ Maiden Voyage: Queen Mary - May 27, 1936, Titanic - April 10, 1912

~ Passenger Capacity: Queen Mary - 1,957, Titanic - 2,440

~ Officers and Crew: Queen Mary - 1,174, Titanic - 860

~ Number of Decks: Queen Mary - 12, Titanic - 8

~ Horsepower: Queen Mary - 160,000, Titanic - 46,000


These are a few pictures taken from our time checking out the Queen Mary:












After visting the Queen Mary, we went to In-N-Out for lunch. We had to at least get one trip in for the best hamburgers in the world!

Day 7 -- Friday

Friday afternoon, we went to the Star Wars exhibit with my parents and Laura's parents since they both were interested in seeing it. It was our 2nd time checking out all the props, costumes, gadgets,etc, but it was still cool...it's Star Wars for crying out loud! Elijah was more intersted in running all over the place and checking out anything that had buttons or made noise. He had a lot of fun!!!












After that, we met up with our friends, Ryan and Danielle, and went to a Pupuseria where we had what else but Pupusas from El Salvador!!! Neither my parents or Laura's parents had ever had them, so it was fun for them to try something new. I think they liked them...either that, or they put on a pretty convincing act?

Day 8 -- Saturday

I left early in the morning for work while Laura and Elijah dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at the airport. It was sad to see them go, but we will see them again soon...perhaps when the new baby comes in August?

The Cowherds Have Landed!

Mom and Dad Cowherd are visiting us this week! They arrived Saturday morning and will leave again the following Saturday. So far, we've been pretty busy since they came. We've had a lot of fun already and even managed to get a few early projects under our belt.

DAY ONE -- Saturday

After they arrived, we had a short little time to rest before Laura's cousins, the Palsma's, came over to hang out. The kids had a blast playing outside together. Elijah wished he was bigger, but he kept up pretty good following the boys around and trying to do everything they did. For dinner, we had Little Ceasar's Pizza, yummy yum yum! After that, we went with the Palsma's to their church up in Eagle Rock for their Saturday worship service. Elijah played with the toddlers in the nursery and was kind of clingy with the workers, but he did great (considering it was way past his bedtime.










DAY TWO -- Sunday

Sunday morning, we took a little trip to Home Depot to pick up supplies for the project we were going to do on Monday. It ended up being a longer trip than we would have liked, but we got through it ok. A good lunch and an even better Sunday nap were in order and then Laura's dad and I decided to take on our first challenge...installing our new dishwasher. It took about 2 hours to put in, but it saved us $180 to put it in ourselves which was totally worth it! Our old dishwasher was really more like a dish rinser and not a very good one at that. We decided to kick it to the curb and replace it with a new-and-improved model. Here are some pictures of our time (Elijah is always willing to help). We're also including some before and after pictures of the dishes. The BIG test was the caked-on casserole dish and it passed with flying colors. Ahh...what a good feeling that our dishes are actually coming out clean for once.










DAY THREE -- Monday

Today was our big work day. We took another trip to a different Home Depot to pick up some supplies we couldn't find on Sunday...and then the work began! We are finally landscaping our outside entrance. Laura's dad and I spent most of the morning putting up the fence and then in the afternoon we laid landscaping fabric (to keep the weeds from growing), planted all our plants (birds of paradise (front), star jasmine on the trellis) and put down new mulch on the ground. We finished just in time for dinner. We think it turned out pretty nice!










After dinner, Elijah tried out his new bubble mower that Grandpa and Grandma bought him. He thought it was pretty cool! Every time bubbles came out, he had to stop and try and catch the bubbles. Great way to get all that energy out before bed time. More to come...

Quick Little Project

My friend, Bryan, approached me on Saturday and asked me if I could build his girlfriend, Jen, a new drawer for her apartment. She moved into a guest house a few months ago, but apparently she was missing a drawer when she moved in.

I worked on it a little every night, starting on Monday and finishing it on Wednesday. I think it took me about 4 hours total to make. The trickiest part was taking the dimension from the old one and then scaling them back because the new drawer needed to be a little bit smaller than the original. It wasn't too bad, though.

Below are two pictures of the new drawer I made, top and bottom. It wasn't completely finished when I gave it to them...they needed to paint the front face white and put on a black knob to match the original.

Dinner with Daddy

Elijah is entering that transition phase where he is figuring out how to use silverware, but hasn't quite mastered it yet. We tried putting a bowl on his tray and giving him a spoon or fork, but he usually ends up dumping the bowl of whatever he's having and throwing it all over the floor.

Today, I thought that I'd try something different. I cut a suction cup off of a stuffed animal we had and glued it to the bottom of the bowl so it would stick to his tray. That worked for a little while *sigh* but he eventually tugged on it so hard it came flying off! Oh well, it was worth a shot.

He decided that he'd rather sit on my lap while we ate baked potatoes and brocolli together. At first, he just poked at my food, but then he got the hang of it. I had to get a new fork (of course) because he wouldn't give mine up. Here are some pictures from our dinner time tonight.

Easter Fun!

Today is Easter Sunday...Resurrection Day! We had my (Dave's) parents over for the afternoon. We talked and hung out until Elijah woke up from his nap and then we surprised Elijah with an Easter Egg Hunt. Looking out our living room window, he already noticed some of the eggs "hidden" outside (although he didn't really know what they were). He keep pointing and saying, "Ball...ball...ball" (close enough, I guess).

We gave him his Easter basket and let him loose outside! He found the Easter eggs right away, but wanted to carry them all around in his arms instead of putting them in his basket. He really had fun when he discovered there were actually things inside the eggs. We didn't have any candy in our house at the time, so we filled the eggs with goldfish crackers and pistachio nuts (some of Elijah's favorites, yum). Every time he found an egg he would immediately throw it on the patio and get excited as all the food fell out. Then he'd walk over and eat the crackers and nuts off the ground. Whose kid is this anyway?












For dinner, we invited out friends, Ryan and Danielle, over for a very Calfornian non-traditional Easter meal: hot dogs, grilled chicken, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, strawberries (thanks mom and dad), and home-made apple pie for dessert. It was all very good.

After that, we put Elijah to bed and the night was over. ~d